Broadway Box Office Dips After Spring Break 2018

The Broadway box office took a post spring break dip this past week, with the exception of Mean Girls, which rebounded into healthy grosses.

Overall Industry Dips By Almost $5 Million

In the week ending April 15, 2018, the Broadway box office saw a big dip in comparison to the previous week. One reason for this may be that spring breaks, which are tapered at different times throughout the country, are largely over by now, which led to a significant reduction in tourist traffic. The impact on the Broadway box office was stark. This past week, out of the 36 show currently running, the collective box office gross was $37,729,080, which is a decrease of $4,867,117 from the previous week. That gross represents a per-show average gross of $1,048,030, down from last week’s per-show average of $1,183,228, and the average percentage reached of gross potential across all shows was 74.69%. The biggest increase was seen by Springsteen on Broadway, which went up by $480,205 to reach a weekly gross of $2,412,700, but the reason for this was that the previous week only had 4 performances, and this past week was back up to the usual 5 performances. In comparison to last week’s percentage reached of gross potential of 101.31%, this past week Springsteen on Broadway actually saw a slight decrease to 101.19% of gross potential, despite the monetary increase to gross box office.
Meanwhile, large decreases were seen by such hit shows as Wicked, which went down by $646,489 to reach a weekly gross of $1,744,175, or 98.0% of its gross potential. Frozen, which is only a new show, but is already acting like a long-running hit in its responsiveness to tourist traffic, also saw a big decrease of $523,357, bringing it to a weekly gross of $1,752,038, or 98.1% of gross potential. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two went down by the significant sum of $437,749, reaching a weekly gross of $1,701,110, and The Phantom of the Opera went down by $437,480 to reach a weekly gross of $1,023,976, or 75.5% of gross potential. Furthermore, Aladdin went down by $377,135 to reach a weekly gross of $1,434,504, or 99.8% of gross potential, The Lion King went down by $371,088 to reach a weekly gross of $2,136,093, or 103.7% of gross potential, SpongeBob SquarePants went down by $349,215 to reach a weekly gross of $675,085, or 47.6% of its gross potential, and Anastasia went down by $299,894 to reach a weekly gross of $824,665, or 75.4% of its gross potential.

“Mean Girls” Rebounds Towards Its Full Potential

In the week following its opening night, Mean Girls saw the biggest increase of any show playing a full performance week. This past week, the Tina Fey penned musical saw a box office gross increase of $205,921 to reach a weekly gross of $1,382,096, which represents 96.60% of its gross potential. In the first three weeks of previews, the show was bringing in over 100% of gross potential, but then the week before last, the week ending April 8, 2018, the show saw a dip down to just 82.21% of its gross potential. This past week, with a top ticket price of $299.50, the average paid admission was $139.97, and the audience capacity was filled up to 100.8%. While the reviews were not unanimously raves, there were a lot of positive sentiments in the major critical response to this show, which, couple with word of mouth, appears to be making a positive impact on the box office.